Higher Gravity Levels:

I found this to be pretty insightful, as I've seen many make the mistake of humans being able to cope with 2g and higher worlds with no problem. In reality, as pointed out, anything more than 1.5g would definitely prevent humans from surviving as we are (e.g. as completely erect bipeds). Figured this would be useful insight for anyone who is creating planets with higher gravity levels who may have been misled by the use of gravity in DBZ.

I like Honorverse portrayals of that. You get full heavyworlder cred from coming from a 1.3g planet, the heaviest that's ever been colonized is like 2.6 and they have to live on high mountaintops because at sea level the air is too thick to breathe.

I'm curious where they get the notion that designs are inherently unusable at certain gravity levels. Have we observed heavyworlder aliens on a 1.5x (E) gravity level? I'm pretty damn sure all of this is just complete conjecture based on likely faulty models.

/has a super-earth where the gravity is comparable (~2.1E) to an actual super-earth recently discovered outside our solar system. (Kepler-10b to be precise.)

edited 1st Feb '12 3:09:55 PM by MajorTom

"Allah may guide their bullets, but Jesus helps those who aim down the sights."

Not inherently unusable, but unlikely to arise, maybe. Humans, with the proper support, could probably exist on a 3g world, but upright bipeds are unlikely to evolve there (at least on a human scale; maybe cat-sized ones could).

^ The same could be said here. That there's no way a bipedal animal with inferior physical strength or speed to 90% of the animal kingdom could become the dominant species on Earth. 90% of the environs humans are found in are hostile to bipedal creatures.

Remember, calcium as a mineral is a lot stronger than you think it is. The bones of a 3g heavyworlder are probably several orders of magnitude denser and more massive than ours.

There's no known evolutionary trigger for a lack of bipedalism. Gravity (and physics in general if the entire Feline family is anything to go by) doesn't seem to have any influence on evolution.

"Allah may guide their bullets, but Jesus helps those who aim down the sights."

You mean apart from our enormous brains, and our forelimbs that are well-adapted to tool-using?

Animals adapt according to their environment, which is why, among other things, birds have hollow bones, seals have blubber, and fish have gills. Why is it so hard to accept that a high-gravity planet might require a rather different evolutionary approach?

I recall something similar. It has to do with a cat's natural tendency to spread itself out while falling, which increases air resistance and lowers its terminal velocity to a survivable speed. But, according to the Other Wiki, a study of High-Rise Syndrome proposes that it takes about five stories for a falling cat to reach terminal velocity, but six stories for the cat's muscles to relax, thus reducing the damage sustained.[1]

edited 3rd Feb '12 11:11:46 AM by Winglerfish

In this episode, Michael attempts to construct a time machine to escape debt and dinner party obligations.

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